Matchbox Girls (21 page)

A crowd wouldn’t stop you,
she’d observed, and she’d been proud of how steady her voice had been.
You and that cop on the side of the highway, in front of all those people.

I chose my prey carefully.

“The spell isn’t degrading,” Corbin announced, as they drew close to the evacuation center and the traffic thickened. “It’s just very, very slowly unlocking.”

“Not keyed to the owner, then.”

“You sure it’s not yours?” he asked, and she couldn’t tell if he was teasing or not.

She gave him a puzzled glance. “Why would you think that?”

He almost smiled. “Because then I could still be right.”

Then they were caught up in the parking chaos and the evacuation center check-in. The expansive lot was filled with RVs and trailers, some of which seemed to provide food service. Volunteers guided the traffic to empty spaces far, far away from the evacuation center itself. The fires were just a blaze of orange light on the night-shaded mountain from there, although the smell of wood smoke was inescapable.

The evacuation center itself was a stadium, filled with row upon row of cots, with tents down less-busy corridors. Families had set up house on many of the cots, pulling them closer together in little family groups. A subtitled news channel was displayed on one of the big overhead screens, while on another, an animated movie played. A lot of people were lying down, but there didn’t seem to be much sleeping going on.

Corbin fidgeted with the encoded book while Marley checked in. As soon as she herded the kids to the cots they’d been assigned, he drew her attention to it once again. “I wonder if it’s reacting to specific celestial genetic proximity.” He half-gestured at the girls, who were bouncing on a cot.

“You mean, like the Lullaby Plaything did?”

He frowned at her. “I meant, if it’s linked to a person, it might also be set to be decoded by their offspring. Which would be why it’s decoding now.”

Exasperated, Marley said, “Is there any way to
test
that?”

“We could hand it to one of them and see if direct contact finishes the process.”

Marley considered this. “You said genetic proximity. Wouldn’t a strand of hair work for that?”

Corbin stared at her. Then, his words coming slow and distracted, he said, “Properly prepared it might. Just harvesting from the hairbrush would make the current decoding continue even away from the offspring, but I don’t think it would accelerate much. I said genetics, but it has as much to do with the personal Geometry of the individual. A little bit of that is contained within shed hair, but not enough without refinement.” He lapsed into silence, still looking intently at Marley.

“Proper preparation. There’s a lot of that in this magic of yours...”

He shrugged, looking away. “Some things take time. Some things don’t. If the kids are related to the key, testing that won’t take any time at all.”

Marley took a deep breath and looked past the habit of anxiety to the catastrophe vision that had trained it. There was uncertainty around the twins, a wobbling she couldn’t quite identify, but between Kari and the encoded book, there was nothing worrying.

She let out her breath. “Kari, want to help us with an experiment?” Kari bounced off the cot and over to the adults, looking up in interest.

Lissa, who had been paying attention, said, “Why her?”

Marley hesitated before telling the truth. “It will give you nightmares. But not her. And no, I don’t know why.” She glanced at Corbin, nodding for him to go ahead.

He crouched down to face Kari, and took her hand. He touched one of her fingers to the paper.

Even from where she was standing, Marley could see the writing on the top page writhe. It lasted only a few heartbeats before it settled into words she could read. Then a flash ran over the page, like the glare from bright sun. As it passed, the words faded away.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” said Corbin, yanking the book away from Kari’s touch. He crouched over it, muttering to himself, his right hand poking and pressing like he was interacting with an invisible touchscreen.

“It was locked,” said Kari, looking on with interest. “You wanted it unlocked, right?”

Marley dropped a hand on her shoulder. “I thought we did.” She could hear the hint of hysterical laughter in her own voice. “Well, it’s not like we’ve lost anything we previously had.”

Corbin said, “I’m working on it. I think I can save most of it...”

“Do you know what happened?” Marley sat down on a cot and let both girls snuggle up beside her.

“She hacked the charm. A brutal, nasty attack on its definition. The charm had a provision for a brute force attack, which was to destroy the contents.” His fingers continued to move as he talked, and he didn’t look up.

Kari stiffened under Marley’s arm. “I was trying to help! Why are you so mean?”

Corbin did look up then, surprise on his face. “What? How am I mean?”

Big angry tears slid down Kari’s face. “You said I was a brute and nasty!”

Marley pulled the little girl completely into her lap, hugging her, but glanced at Corbin to see what he was going to do. He looked flustered and irritated. “It was praise. You’re very talented. Later, I’d really like to know what you did.”

Kari sniffed. “I said. I unlocked it.”

Corbin mumbled, “Later. Right now, I need to work.” And he bent his head over the book, and said no more.

-twenty-three-

S
o Marley read the twins a book about Thumbelina, complete with extended critical discussion between the twins about princes, wings, and moles. When they were done, Corbin held out the papers to her.

“I did save some of it. There’s quite a lot more readable than what we had before, anyhow.”

Marley took it. “Is there anything useful in it?”

Corbin shrugged. “It’s the diary of a high school girl. She talks about boys a lot. I only skimmed it, though. Maybe you can read it more closely?”

“What are you going to do?”

He ran a hand through his hair. “I want to go talk to somebody who might be able to explain to me why the kids are so... talented and interesting. AT is on her way here to stay with you while I’m gone.”

“Not somebody you can just call up, I take it?”

“Not with a cellphone, not if I want reliable answers.”

She looked at him carefully, wondering if what he was about to do was very dangerous. The catastrophe vision unfolded—

“Stop it,” he said. His voice was so harsh it shocked her. “I don’t want you to look at me like that. Yes, it might be dangerous. It has to be done anyhow.” He turned away.

Bewildered hurt flowed through her and she stared at his back. “Fine.”

“I’ll call you or AT with what I discover tomorrow—actually, later today. Try to get some rest while the kaiju is still distracting the angel.”

She watched him walk away, and then busied herself convincing the girls to lie down and rest. Lissa wanted to take Neath out and play with her, and refused to understand that wasn’t possible. The volunteers at the evacuation shelter were overlooking very small pets, as long as they were contained, and Neath herself showed no interest in crawling out of her box. Marley had prodded her all over and she didn’t seem injured from her encounter with the kaiju, just worn out.

AT slouched over, dog-free. “The dogs are around,” she said, when Marley raised her eyebrows. She looked tousled and cranky. “I heard the big guy found you anyhow. I’m sorry. Not really sure why Corbin asked me to come over, given how little help I’ve been so far.”

Marley bit her lip. “I appreciate your company.”

“Yeah. Did Corbin take off already? Wow, he must really be confident.” AT looked around.

“I think he was angry, actually,” Marley said. “Although I don't know what he had to be angry about.”

“
You
sound angry. Did you two fight?” AT’s mouth tugged down into a frown
.

Marley looked away. “I’m going to take a look at this book Corbin and Kari decoded. We’re hoping it will have some kind of useful information.”

AT shrugged, and stretched out on a cot, propping herself onto her side and pulling out her cellphone. She began tapping at the screen, apparently prepared to entertain herself.

Marley settled onto her own cot. A wave of exhaustion crashed over her, and she wondered what time it was. The middle of the night? Had it only been three days since the twins called her? It felt so much longer. One day she was a marginally employed, depressed, anxiety-ridden writer; the next, she was protecting strange little girls from the angel who wanted to claim them and kill her. Kill her
and
all the other part-angels, which she happened to be.

Even reviewing the terror and weirdness of the last few days didn’t decrease Marley’s vast desire to sleep. But she couldn’t give in yet, not when there was the mysterious book to read. She'd had plenty of sleep in the past few days. She could cope a little longer.

She thumbed through the book. It
was
a diary, undated but with stars and moons doodled between the entries. The entries that remained were on lined paper. But in many places, the diary was blotched by emptiness. Both writing and lines had faded away, leaving only naked white paper behind.

A quick preliminary flip-through confirmed that the diary seemed to be written by a teenage girl, and primarily documented her experiences with some boys. Marley was reminded of Penny, at first, until she caught a phrase: “the nameless man.” She flipped back to the beginning. It was blank. She carefully turned pages until she found the first patch of remaining text.

I saw another strange man today. But he wasn't as creepy as the nameless man. This time, I knew his name, but he didn’t. He was looking around like he was lost, and he was very pretty, so I stopped to see if I could help him out. He told me he was looking for somebody but couldn’t remember who, or how he got there.  He didn’t have a wallet or any kind of identification, so I walked him over to the Westgate Shopping Center lost and found. I almost told them his name but I decided that would probably get me into more trouble than it would help him. I hope he’s all right. I've already nicknamed him Cat.

The next page was there, too.

The stray Cat was exactly where I found him yesterday today. Same clothes, same pose, everything. Creepy déjà vu at first, but then he saw me and smiled. Ashley was with me today and she squealed and giggled and told me I didn’t say he was so hot. Well, no, not in so many words, it’s not like she needs encouragement.

Anyhow, the Cat told me he thought I could be a lot more helpful than the people at the lost and found. “There’s just something about you,” he said. Uh huh. Right.

That’s when I called him Cat. It's actually part of his name. He didn’t react like somebody who’d been faking forgetting his own name, though. So I took pity on him and asked him what he did remember.

He said he remembered a man who had stolen something from him. He had to find that man again in order to get back whatever he’d lost. The man’s face was burned into his memory. Ashley loaned him her art pad and a pencil, and he sketched a picture.

He was a very good artist. I did know the face. It was the nameless man from the other da

And that entry abruptly ended. Marley glanced over to where Kari lay curled on her side. She was watching Marley sleepily. Marley found a small smile for the little girl. “Go to sleep.”

“Sorry I was nasty,” Kari whispered. She sighed. “I want Uncle Zach back. I don’t like all this.”

“We’ll get through this together,” Marley said. She was very aware that it wasn’t the same as “we’ll find him” or “he’ll be back soon,” and she suspected Kari knew it. But the little girl just sighed again and closed her eyes.

Marley bit her lip and turned her attention back to the book.

I looked up Cat’s full name on the internet. I didn’t find anything reliable.

We ended up spending the day together. He’s so full of... joy. I told him that and he said he wasn’t, except around me. He says he’s lonely and lost when I’m not around. He hates not knowing who he is. I thought again about telling him his name, but... I can’t. I’ve gotten into enough trouble over knowing names I shouldn’t know.

*

He moves like a dancer, but food confuses him. He really liked the pizza, though.

*

I can’t tell if he knows about kissing or not. I’m too nervous to find out!

*

I asked him today if he could just move on with his life. I really like him. But it’s like there’s a huge wound in him. He says he knows he’s not like the other people around us, and it hurts him to try. I do know what it’s like to be different from everybody else. We have that in common. It’s probably part of why we like each other. But I can’t even bring myself to tell him about Mother and why I think I’m different. I’m not ready for things to change yet.

*

Today I found myself at this strip mall I’d never been to before, with a grubby park behind it. I didn’t know why I went there at first, I was just wandering around and I felt this... emptiness sucking me in. I could hardly not follow it. HE was there. The nameless man. He was just walking around the building, stopping every so often to look at it. I went quietly over to the park and sat on a swing. I was kind of scared... ok, I was really scared, but I couldn’t think of a REASON, one that made sense, to be scared. Just because I didn’t know his name, or he was able to trick my name-sense before... and just because Cat was looking for him...

He looked like he was the same age as Cat, maybe 20. They almost looked like brothers, both tall and slender. He was scary but he just didn’t seem DANGEROUS. I didn’t worry that he was going to grab me and throw me in a van, or chase me down. He had this purposefully casual style, you know, with a sloppy tie and a rumpled shirt? But his sleeves were rolled up neatly.